Stupid, stupid, stupid NBC withdraws from iTunes contract
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NBC Universal’s TV shows are no longer available on iTunes, with NBC deciding not to renew its contract with Apple after it expired on Nov 30. The General Electric-owned broadcaster threatened that it would not renew its two-year contract with Apple in Aug, following disagreements over pricing and copyright control.
Now this is not strictly mobile related but I had to make a comment on this. NBC has decided not to renew its contract with Apple so you can’t buy NBC shows on iTunes now.
Idiots. Class-A idiots. It’s all about the consumer, stupid.
That gets right up my nose. Right UP my nose. I like one or two NBC shows and I was planning on buying a few NBC series on iTunes shortly. But screw them, with bells on. It really gets right up my nose when content owners think they know best. What’s best is getting your content via multiple distribution streams as easy as possible to the consumer and at a fair price.
Otherwise consumers just download it. It’s really simple, isn’t it? Stick it on iTunes and I’ll buy it as it’s easy and hassle free. Otherwise two clicks on Google and you can be illegally downloading NBC content right away. Absolute 100% idiots.
You get the same in the mobile industry though. Idiot people not understanding how consumers work and what consumers actually want. Witness – Sony’s unmitigated disaster in the wake of the Walkman and the iPod. They still haven’t got their handsets working properly.
For 70 years it’s been easy to consume content. You switch on your television and you’re done. It works, whether it’s black and white, or colour. Enter the mobile industry and all of a sudden manufacturers, operators (and, to a lesser extent, content providers) are all over the shop, pissing consumers right off for years.
I remember when I bought a Sony MiniDisc player, I was dumbfounded by how annoying it was to get music ON to the device. I remember thinking ‘Why isn’t there a music store where I can just click and download tracks?’ Then Sony vomited one out to the marketplace … that enabled you to buy a Michael Jackson album or a Meatloaf one (or something like that). Getting the sodding music ON to the device was another issue. The device wasn’t quite compatible with Windows and worked every second Tuesday. All the MP3s that I had needed to be VERY SLOWLY converted over to Sony’s format by it’s shit-slow piece-of-shit-rubbish music console that kept on crashing. Swap computers and you’re screwed.
It really, really wound me up. You’d think billion dollar companies were better than this. But no, their executives are sat at the top of the tower arsing around.
What plonker decided to make it so difficult to put music on to a Nokia? And then WORK the music on the phone.
It really winds me up that my mother can download tracks from iTunes and play them and playlist them — and then sync songs to her iPhone and, shock horror, PLAY them – without any effort… but that she never, ever did this on her MP3-capable (but ultimately piece-of-shit) Motorola RAZR. Bollocks. Total bollocks.
No wonder the industry is so monumentally screwed at the moment.
But it’s not all bad. No. Apple at least have shown how to do it properly. The iPhone isn’t brilliant, it has it’s issues. But hopefully, HOPEFULLY the arses at the top — the developers, the ‘specialist innovation consultants’ and whatnot, have got the message now and the next generation of Sony, Samsung, LG, Nokia (and Apple) devices will be significantly improved.
They won’t, obviously, be carrying any NBC content…
